IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON GEOSCIENCE AND REMOTE SENSING, VOL.

60, 2022 4505815

A Global Meta-Analysis of Soil Salinity Prediction

Integrating Satellite Remote Sensing, Soil
Sampling, and Machine Learning
Haiyang Shi , Olaf Hellwich , Senior Member, IEEE, Geping Luo , Chunbo Chen, Huili He,
Friday Uchenna Ochege , Tim Van de Voorde , Alishir Kurban , and Philippe de Maeyer

Abstract— Despite the growing interest among researchers, others), soil texture (R 2 of 0.66 in sandy areas and 0.57 in
satellite-based prediction of soil salinity remains highly uncertain. others), and the interval between sampling date and satellite data
The improvements in prediction accuracy reported in previous acquisition date (R 2 of 0.53 under the condition of over 15 days
studies are usually limited to a single area. We performed a and 0.65 in others). Generally, using different satellite data has
meta-analysis of regional satellite-based soil salinity predictions limited effects on model performance among which Sentinel-2
combined with in situ soil sampling and machine learning. performed better (R 2 = 0.72) than Landsat (R 2 = 0.66). The
Based on R 2 and root-mean-square error (RMSE) collected, sampling of subsamples for each sample should focus on their
we evaluated the effects of various features on the model accuracy subpixel-scale spatial heterogeneity across satellite data rather
and established a Bayesian network to evaluate the joint causal than the number of subsamples. It is also necessary to select
effect of multifeatures. Most significant differences were found appropriate vegetation and salinity indices for different satellite
in soil sampling schemes and characteristics of the study area, data under different vegetation conditions. Among algorithms,
including the mean and variability (averaged R 2 of 0.75 for soil random forests (R 2 = 0.70) and support vector machines (R 2 =
sample sets with lower salinity variation and 0.62 for others) of 0.71) performed best.
the salinity, climate type (R 2 of 0.64 in arid areas and 0.74 in
Index Terms— Hyperspectral, machine learning, multispectral,
remote sensing, satellite, soil salinity.
Manuscript received June 16, 2021; revised July 30, 2021 and August 18,
2021; accepted August 29, 2021. Date of publication September 15, 2021;
date of current version January 21, 2022. This research has been supported
by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant nos. U1803243 N OMENCLATURE
and 41877012), the Strategic Priority Research Programme of the Chinese NIR Near-infrared band.
Academy of Sciences (grant no. XDA20060302), the Team project of the
Chinese Academy of Sciences (grant no. 2018-YDYLTD-002), the West SWIR Short-wave infrared band.
Light Foundation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (grant no. 2018- UAV Unmanned aerial vehicle.
XBQNXZ-B-011), and High-End Foreign Experts Project. (Corresponding SSC Soil salt content.
author: Geping Luo.)
Haiyang Shi and Huili He are with the State Key Laboratory of Desert ECe Electrical conductivity of saturated soil
and Oasis Ecology, Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese extract.
Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China, also with the College of
Resources and Environment, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences,
EC1:5 Electrical conductivity of a 1:5 soil–water
Beijing 100049, China, also with the Sino-Belgian Joint Laboratory of Geo- dilution ratio.
Information, Ghent University, 9000 Ghent, Belgium, and also with the SEM Structural equation modeling.
Department of Geography, Ghent University, 9000 Ghent, Belgium (e-mail:
haiyang.shi@ugent.be; huili.he@ugent.be). BN Bayesian network.
Olaf Hellwich is with the Department of Computer Vision and Remote PRISMA Preferred reporting items for systematic
Sensing, Technische Universität Berlin, 10623 Berlin, Germany (e-mail: reviews and meta-analyses.
olaf.hellwich@tu-berlin.de).
Geping Luo is with the State Key Laboratory of Desert and Oasis Ecology, EM Expectation–maximization.
Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, MI Mutual information.
Beijing 100049, China, and also with the College of Resources and Environ- FVC Fractional vegetation cover.
ment, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
(e-mail: luogp@ms.xjb.ac.cn). XGBOOST Extreme gradient boosting.
Chunbo Chen, Friday Uchenna Ochege, and Alishir Kurban are RF Random forest.
with Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy MLR Multiple linear regression.
of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China (e-mail: ccb_8586@ms.xjb.ac.cn;
friday@ms.xjb.ac.cn; alishir@ms.xjb.ac.cn). ANN Artificial neural network.
Tim Van de Voorde is with the Department of Geography, Ghent University, SVM Support vector machine.
9000 Ghent, Belgium (e-mail: tim.vandevoorde@ugent.be). PLSR Partial least squares regression.
Philippe de Maeyer is with Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography,
Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China, also with the College SD Standard deviation.
of Resources and Environment, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, NDVI Normalized difference vegetation index.
Beijing 100049, China, also with the Sino-Belgian Joint Laboratory of Geo- EVI Enhanced vegetation index.
Information, Ghent University, 9000 Ghent, Belgium, and also with the
Department of Geography, Ghent University, 9000 Ghent, Belgium (e-mail: SAVI Soil-adjusted vegetation index.
philippe.demaeyer@ugent.be). CRSI Canopy response salinity index.
This article has supplementary downloadable material available at SI Salinity index.
https://doi.org/10.1109/TGRS.2021.3109819, provided by the authors.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TGRS.2021.3109819 VI_SI Vegetation and salinity index.
1558-0644 © 2021 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See https://www.ieee.org/publications/rights/index.html for more information.

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 4505815 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON GEOSCIENCE AND REMOTE SENSING, VOL. 60, 2022

I. I NTRODUCTION synthesize the collective knowledge of peer-reviewed journal

S OIL salinization is a global ecological problem leading

to soil degradation; it is considered one of the main
factors limiting the sustainable development of irrigated crop-
articles, to determine which remote sensing data, feature
selection, machine learning models, and other factors can
provide the most promising contributions to improve the
lands [1], [2] and other economic activities [3]. Soil salin- prediction accuracy and under which conditions are they more
ity is dominated by a combination of various natural and effective.
anthropogenic factors, such as landform [4], [5], land surface The factors that lead to differences in the performance of
altitude [6], soil drainage condition [7], irrigation, climate, and such models are diverse, including the used satellite images,
soil texture. The rapid and accurate regional prediction of soil soil sampling schemes, characteristics of the study area, and
salinity is essential for decision-makers to formulate optimiza- algorithms that are described in the following.
tion policies for regions with soil salinization risks, which can
1) Satellite Images: Multispectral satellite sensors were
avoid unreasonable use of water and land resources in irrigated
the preferred method for mapping and monitoring soil
areas as well as continuous degradation of land ecosystems.
salinity, largely due to the low cost of such imagery. The
In arid areas, excessive irrigation will cause the shallow
most commonly used multispectral remote sensing data
groundwater level to rise and cause secondary salinization if
source for soil salinity estimation was Landsat (e.g., TM,
the drainage conditions are poor [8]; 20% of irrigated land
ETM+, and OLI) [17], [18] with a 16-day revisit period
over the world is affected by salinity, especially in Australia,
due to open access and the high resolution of 30 m.
China, Egypt, Uzbekistan, India, Iran, Iraq, Mexico, Pakistan,
By contrast, Sentinel-2 [19]–[21] has a higher resolution
and so on [9]. Due to the increasing population and food
of 10–20 m and a smaller temporal granularity of five
demand, the potential increasing irrigation in arid/semiarid
days. Compared with Landsat and Sentinel, MODIS has
regions may result in a higher risk of salinization in more
the advantage of smaller time granularity to capture
croplands in the future. Due to its advantages in providing
salinity dynamics and the disadvantage of much lower
regional and dynamic information based on imagery, satellite
spatial resolution. The NIR and SWIR of these sensors
remote sensing, such as multispectral, hyperspectral, and active
are considered effective to distinguish the spectrum of
microwave images, has become an important approach to
saline soil [2], [10]. Also, various VI_SIs calculated
monitor regional soil salinity [2], [10]. One of the most
from multibands have been used as input variables for
commonly used approaches is establishing a regression model
the prediction model, but it is still unclear when they
of pixel-scale image data and ground in situ salinity of
are more effective. The limitations of these multispectral
soil samples. Subsequently, the established model is used
remote sensing methods can be attributed but not limited
to estimate soil salinity at a regional scale based on the
to the relatively low spectral resolution, especially when
reflectance value of the images. With the increasing popularity
applied to areas with the spectral mixture and subpixel
of machine learning approaches in the field of remote sensing
spatial heterogeneity. Hyperspectral satellite data can
application research in recent years, a variety of machine
purportedly be used to solve spectral mixture problems
learning algorithms, such as RF, SVM, and ANN, have enabled
caused by insufficient spectral resolution of the tradi-
us to incorporate more satellite imagery variables and auxiliary
tional multispectral approach. Some hyperspectral data,
data such as terrain, vegetation, soil texture/moisture, and
such as EO-1 Hyperion and HJ-1, have been used for soil
hydrological data into the regression model to fit the nonlinear
salinity estimation [22], [23]. However, the availability
relationship with the salinity of soil samples. Such studies
of these hyperspectral datasets may limit their large-
using various methods and satellite remote sensing data have
scale applications. Besides, active (radar) microwave
been applied to salt-affected areas around the world [11]–[16].
imagery, such as Sentinel-1 backscatter data, has also
However, the comprehensive and systematic evaluation of how
been used to estimate soil salinity [24], [25], which
to improve their performance and universality remains limited.
currently has shown its advantages in soil moisture
Researchers have made considerable efforts to improve the
retrieval [26]. However, the characterization of saline
accuracy of soil salinity prediction using machine learning and
soils using radar imagery and complex dielectric con-
remote sensing at the regional scale. Most published papers
stants determined by radar backscattering inversion tech-
prove the effectiveness of their proposed improvements by
niques requires some soil moisture, as the measurements
comparing the accuracy of the developed predictive model
depend principally on dielectric constant and permittiv-
with the existing models. However, the improvements reported
ity determined by moisture conditions and chemical and
in these studies are usually limited to a single area. In these
biological compositions [27]. UAV remote sensing has
comparisons, it is still difficult for us to promote a general
also been used for soil salinity estimation [28], and it
guideline for selecting suitable remote sensing data, features,
may have advantages due to its high resolution. How-
and models. In addition, in many cases, even when comparing
ever, its ability to estimate salinity at a regional scale
similar modeling methods, different studies may report con-
remains very limited compared with satellite remote
flicting results, and it is challenging to obtain general recom-
sensing approaches.
mendations with these isolated individual studies. Therefore,
2) Soil Sampling Schemes: The following conditions hold.
questions such as “Which remote sensing data is the best?” and
“how can we effectively improve the prediction accuracy of a) Differences in soil sampling schemes affect model
soil salinity?” have not been answered. Therefore, we should performance. In study areas of different sizes,

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 SHI et al.: GLOBAL META-ANALYSIS OF SOIL SALINITY PREDICTION
the spatial density and representativeness of soil
samples will affect the predictive capability of
the established model. In addition, at the sub-
pixel scale, different sampling schemes were used.
In some studies, the salt content of a soil sample
represents the salinity of one pixel, while in other
studies, the average value of multiple (approxi-
mately 3 to 5) adjacent samples represents the
salinity of one pixel or one plot to reduce errors
and enhance representativeness.
b) For the study areas with multiple land use
and cover types, it is important to con-
sider the representativeness of soil sampling in
advance.
c) The temporal representation of soil sampling
should also be considered. The dynamic changes
of topsoil salinity may be rapidly affected by fluc-
tuations in hydrological and meteorological vari-
ables [2] and human activities such as irrigation.
To minimize the effect of the difference in surface
salt between the date of soil sampling and the date
of acquisition of satellite images except for studies
using multiyear data [29], [30], we need to consider
the abovementioned factors synergistically in the
soil sampling scheme. However, except for studies
in which the soil sampling and remote sensing
data acquisition are scheduled on the same day,
the analysis of the errors caused by the time
difference of the soil sampling and remote sensing
data acquisition is still limited.
d) In terms of different soil salinity extraction meth-
ods, such as SSC, ECe, and EC1:5, the salinity
values of the target variable of models were mea-
sured in different units (e.g., in dS/m and g/kg) or
dimensions. It may be one of the reasons why it is
difficult to compare the model accuracy of multiple
studies.
e) The depths of sampling in different studies also
vary. Although most are described as the same
“estimation of surface salt,” the actual sampling
depths may be at 0–5 cm, 0–15 cm, 0–20 cm,
and so on, which differ from the depth that can
be detected by remote sensing.
f) In some sampling schemes, the salinity value of
each sampling point or plot is represented by the
mean value of several surrounding subsamples.
This method was believed to be able to reduce
the error, which considers the representativeness of
the sample and the matching with the pixel of the
satellite image. However, whether this approach is
reasonable and how to weigh the representative-
ness, the number of subsamples in each sample,
and the size of the plot (as the cost of the sampling)
is still unclear.
3) Characteristics of the Study Area: The contributions of
climate, topography, soil texture, and so on to topsoil
salt accumulation vary with study areas. The drier the
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4505815
climate, the higher the topsoil salinity may be due to
the extremely high potential evaporation and insufficient
precipitation leaching. Soil texture may affect the topsoil
salinity through the transport of soil water and salt.
In low-lying terrain, salt may accumulate due to lack of
drainage. To some extent, the model performance may
also vary when applied to study areas with different
characteristics. There are differences between applica-
tions in arid/semiarid areas and other areas due to
different climates, vegetation coverage, human activities,
and topsoil salt dynamics. The possibility to accurately
estimate soil salinity varies with soil moisture content,
salt pureness, coatings, and spectral contrast with other
surface features (e.g., braided stream beds, eroded terrain
surfaces with truncated soils, and nonsaline silt-rich
structural crusts) of the study areas [2]. The interference
of vegetation in the study area may also cause spectral
confusion, especially in the green and red bands [31].
Therefore, there are probably different mechanisms of
the surface salinity retrieval between salinized bare
land with low vegetation coverage and salt-affected
cropland with higher vegetation coverage. In salinized
bare land, the spectral interference from vegetation may
come from salt-tolerant halophytes mainly. In cropland,
it mainly comes from the crop and varies with stages
of the growing season. Due to the potentially stronger
dynamics of vegetation and soil moisture, the complexity
of soil salinity retrieval in cropland may be higher.
Although some vegetation indices (e.g., NDVI, EVI,
and CRSI) have also been used to indirectly infer
salinity by monitoring canopy temperature and crop
growth [18], 32], [33] based on the assumption of
the negative correlation between soil salinity and crop
growth with an assumed steady-state approach of soil
salinity and make use of multiyear data to filter other
factors that may be more transient in time such as
irrigation water management, pest, and diseases, it is still
uncertain how the real salinity dynamics may cause the
failure of the steady-state assumption. Also, the topog-
raphy variability, hydrometeorological variability, and
the intensity of human activities (e.g., irrigation) of the
study area may dominate the effectiveness of introducing
auxiliary data (e.g., topographic variables derived from
DEM). If the terrain of the study area is very flat, adding
terrain data derived from DEM to the model may not
provide additional information related to salt transport
and thus cannot substantially improve the performance
of the model.
4) Algorithms: Different algorithms may have their advan-
tages when applied to fit the relationship between
the salinity of soil samples and the covariates. For
example, neural networks may have advantages in
nonlinear fitting [34] and RF may avoid overfitting
due to the introduction of randomness [35]. How-
ever, when focusing on fitting the relationship between
soil salinity and covariates, it is still unclear which
algorithm is more universal and why it performed
better.
 4505815 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON GEOSCIENCE AND REMOTE SENSING, VOL. 60, 2022

The main purpose of this study was to conduct a meta-

analysis of published satellite remote sensing predictions of
regional soil salinity combined with in situ soil sampling and
machine learning. We define “meta-analysis” as a method
to systematically integrate results from peer-reviewed studies
and, through statistical comparison, assess the patterns of
effects (e.g., the statistical metric of prediction model per-
formance) by satellite data type and other features of interest.
Furthermore, we analyze the complex relationships among the
multiple variables collected focusing on model performance.
Compared with SEM [36], which has been used in meta-
analysis to analyze the relationship between such multiple
factors [37]–[39], BN may have advantages in integrating
expert knowledge and inference [40], [41]. Therefore, in this
study, we will use BN to analyze the causal relationships
within the process of integrating soil sampling, remote sensing
data analysis, and machine learning. The remainder of this
article is organized as follows. We first detail the methods
used to conduct the meta-analysis, including selection and data
extraction from published studies and the subsequent analysis. Fig. 1. PRISMA flow diagram for including articles.
Next, we present results of the evaluation of the model
performance divided by satellite data type, soil sampling
are replicated by the model, based on the proportion
schemes, characteristics of the study area, and algorithms.
of total variation of outcomes explained by the model.
Third, we analyze the joint probability effects of multiple
It was selected over other accuracy measures because it
features on the model performance based on the BN as a
is most frequently reported and thus would result in a
tool to guide future practical studies with the tradeoff between
larger sample size of articles.
accuracy and cost considered. Finally, we discuss the impli-
5) Only articles published in English journals were
cations of the findings for remote sensing prediction of soil
included.
salinity. The results of this summary provide some guidance on
6) Two global-scale studies [43], [44] were excluded
the expected performance of soil salinity prediction in various
because the number of used soil samples data and spatial
conditions. Moreover, the proposed method of using BN for
scale was considerably larger than other included articles
causal multifeature meta-analysis can be referenced in other
applied at the watershed scale (focused in this meta-
meta-analysis studies (e.g., a meta-analysis of remote sensing
analysis).
estimation of soil moisture).

B. Features of the Prediction Processes Evaluated

II. M ETHODOLOGY
A. Protocol for Selecting the Sample of Articles
Based on the Scopus database, we designed and applied a
general query on title, abstract, and keywords to include rele-
vant articles with the “OR” operator applied among expressions
in Table I. We followed PRISMA [42] in the selection process
(Fig. 1). The used criteria to include articles are as follows.
1) Articles were limited to regional soil salinity prediction
using satellite data. Articles mainly focusing on UAV
sensors or ground in situ hyperspectral sensors were not
included.
2) Only articles with soil salinity sampling reported were
included.
3) Only articles using multivariable regression were
included. Articles aimed at soil salinity-level classifica-
tion were not included.
4) Only articles with determination coefficient R-square
R 2 of the validation or test step as the measure of
model performance reported were included. R 2 is the
proportion of the variance in the dependent variable that
is predictable from the independent variable(s), which
provides a measure of how well the observed outcomes
We consider a variety of features in Table I (see the Sup-
plementary Material) involved in the soil salinity prediction
process (Fig. 2) from the included papers. These variables can
be roughly categorized into three groups: algorithms, remote
sensing and auxiliary data, and characteristics of the study
area and soil sampling. We recorded the algorithms used in
the articles, and the performance of each model is processed as
a data record. If multiple algorithms are applied comparatively
to the same dataset and region, then multiple data records will
be extracted. In the case of the same algorithm used, models
that use different data or features will also be recorded as
multiple records. The later meta-analysis is performed based
on these records. R 2 (in the validation phase) is extracted as
the main model performance evaluation indicator and the root-
mean-square error (RMSE) is also included in the evaluation
if reported in this article. However, the units and dimensions
of RMSE for different salt measurement methods are different.
Therefore, we use conversion factors to uniformly convert the
RMSE, mean, maximum, and SD value of the salinity of
soil sample collections to ECe with the unified unit dS/m.
We extracted the average soil texture of soil samples from
the SoilGrids1km [45] data of the basin-scale HydroSHEDS

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 SHI et al.: GLOBAL META-ANALYSIS OF SOIL SALINITY PREDICTION 4505815

TABLE I
A RTICLE S EARCH Q UERY D ESIGN : ‘[A1 OR A2 OR A3…]
AND [B1 OR B2…] AND [C1 OR C2…]’

product in Table I (see the Supplementary Material) and the

conversion factors are determined based on these extracted soil
texture features in Table II (see the Supplementary Material)
based on experience [46], [47]. As a result, most of the
studies were given medium conversion factors because the
sand content (%) and clay content (%) are not very high.

C. BN Used to Model the Joint Causal Effects of

Multifeatures as a Tool Guiding Future Research
In addition to the above single analysis of the impact of
each feature, it is necessary to simulate the causal relationship
between model performance and the multifeature joint effects.
We perform it using the BN for its potential to incorporate
expert knowledge as a tool for guiding future research. Con-
cretely, we process the multidimensional data collected from
the articles into a training dataset with R 2 and RMSE as the
target variables and other variables as the independent features.
Based on empirical knowledge, we determine the directional
causal link between nodes and the status discretization of each
variable node. Furthermore, the BN is parameterized by the
training data with the joint probability calculated.
The nodes of a BN represent random variables (X 1 ,…, X n )
with their joint probability distribution [48] calculated as

n
P(X) = P(X 1 , X 2 , . . . , X n ) = P(X i | pa(X i )) (1)
i=1
where pa(X i ) represents the value of the parent node of
the node X i . With expert knowledge, the prior conditional
probability table of BN can be given. Then, we use the EM
algorithm [49] to incorporate observational data extracted from
the included articles into the BN to update the conditional
probability table.
To evaluate the sensitivity of model performance nodes to
various characteristics, we use the sensitivity analysis of the
BN with MI, which indicates the entropy reduction of the
distribution of the child node caused by the determination
of the status of the parent node. The greater the MI value,
the higher the sensitivity of the child node to the parent node,
accompanied by stronger causality. The formula of MI is as
follows:
MI = H (Q) − H (Q|F)
  
P(q, f )
= P(q, f ) log2
q f
P(q)P( f )
Fig. 2. Features of the soil salinity prediction process. The central part
shows the general process of soil salinity prediction modeling using remote
sensing, soil sampling, and machine learning methods. The upper part shows
the potential sources of errors when using different remote sensing data. The
lower part shows the factors that may cause variation in prediction accuracy
at the stage of ground in situ soil sampling.
where H represents the entropy, Q represents the target node,
F represents the set of other nodes, and q and f represent the
status of Q and F, respectively.
We also develop another BN which included the studies
using the Landsat data (most commonly used) only with
a tradeoff analysis of cost and accuracy. The costs include
transportation cost, soil analysis cost, and labor cost for
sampling, and they are calculated as follows:
C1 = a L + bn (3)
Nd
C2 = n p (4)
5 × 30
C3 = C1 + C2 (5)
where C1 is the sum of the transportation cost and soil analysis
cost, C2 is the labor cost for sampling, C3 is the total costs,
a is the gas bill per kilometer, b is the soil analysis cost per
soil sample, L is the estimated total distance of the sampling
event, n is the number of samples, N is the number of
(2) subsamples of each sample, d is the width of the sampling
plot, and p is the labor cost under the five subsamples and

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 4505815 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON GEOSCIENCE AND REMOTE SENSING, VOL. 60, 2022

TABLE II
T RADEOFF A NALYSIS B ETWEEN A CCURACY AND C OST U NDER
D IFFERENT C OMBINATIONS OF VARIABLE S TATUS

Fig. 4. Number of publications per year.

B. Meta-Analysis: Evaluation of the Effects of Various

Features
Under the control of different types of characteristics,
the difference in the distribution of R 2 is analyzed (see Fig. 5).
These categories are divided into three groups focusing on
algorithms, satellite and auxiliary data, and characteristics of
the study area and soil sampling. The analysis results are as
follows.
1) In Terms of Algorithms: The articles using Cubist
showed the highest average R 2 . Among algorithms
that used frequently, RF and SVM performed bet-
ter than ANN and MLR, while PLSR performed the
Fig. 3. Location of studies included in the meta-analysis (n = 57 worst. It also matches the results of internal com-
experiments).
parisons of studies that developed multiple models
based on the same datasets and model parameters
(see Fig. 6) with the potentially disturbing effects of
30 × 30 m plot condition. In fact, sampling and labor costs other features on the model performance are strictly
in different regions or research institutes of the world are limited.
different, so this study only uses this as an example of definite 2) In Terms of Remote Sensing and Auxiliary Data: The
cost. performance of models using different satellite data
is different. Among the commonly used multispectral
III. R ESULTS satellites, Sentinel-2 performed significantly better than
Landsat which is most frequently used. The performance
A. Articles Included in the Meta-Analysis of the relatively rarely used MODIS was similar to that
A total of 57 articles were selected and included in the of Landsat. The models using active microwave radar
meta-analysis during PRISMA flow (Fig. 1). The geograph- data such as Sentinel-1 also performed well, and the
ical coverage of these articles was mainly Asia (especially performance was between Sentinel-2 and Landsat. The
in Iran and Xinjiang, China), Africa, and North America performance of the models using hyperspectral satellite
(Fig. 3). Most of them are located in arid and semiarid data, such as HJ-1 and EO-1 Hyperion, is similar to
regions with high potential evaporation and low precipitation. that of Landsat. Unexpectedly, the models using mul-
Irrigated agriculture in these areas is mostly affected by soil tiple satellite data combinations did not show strong
salinization (especially in the Middle East, Central Asia, and performance. Using a combination of SWIR and NIR
North Africa). Articles in nonarid areas are mostly near the is more effective than just using NIR. Besides, using
sea, and salinization is caused by seawater intrusion into hydrometeorological data and terrain data derived from
coastal groundwater. The number of published articles within DEM slightly improved the performance.
this domain has increased rapidly in recent years (Fig. 4), 3) In Terms of the Characteristics of the Study Area
and the combination of satellite remote sensing and machine and Soil Sampling: A medium S/n value corresponds
learning for regional soil salinity prediction has attracted more to higher performance. The interval between the soil
researchers’ interest. sampling date and the remote sensing data acquisition

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 SHI et al.: GLOBAL META-ANALYSIS OF SOIL SALINITY PREDICTION
Fig. 5. Summary and test results of feature categories in the predic-
tion process displayed in groups: (a) algorithms, (b) remote sensing and
auxiliary data, and (c) characteristics of the study area and sampling.
L, M, S1, S2, DEM, and Hydro respectively represent Landsat, MODIS,
Sentinel-1, Sentinel-2, terrain data derived from DEM, and hydrometeorologi-
cal data, respectively. Their combinations are indicated by an underscore (e.g.,
DEM_S_Hydro represents the combined usage of terrain data, soil texture, and
hydrometeorological data). S/n is the area of the study area divided by the
number of soil samples. FVC is the fractional vegetation coverage of the study
area. In the box plots, the center lines represent the means, and the box limits
represent the interquartile ranges.
date significantly affected the model performance, and
the subgroup with an interval greater than 15 days
performed worst. It illustrates that the matching of the
sampling date and the satellite image acquisition date
is critical due to the correlation between the surface
salt and the remotely sensed spectral data may decrease
when the interval is more than 15 days. Therefore, when
using satellite data with a revisit period of more than
15 days (e.g., Landsat), incorporating the revisit period
and the projected quality of remote sensing images
into the design of the sampling scheme may improve
the model performance. When applied to collections
of samples with higher mean salinity or its variation,
the average model performed worse. For the sample
collections with higher salinity, the correlation between
salinity and spectrums may be lower. The relatively poor
performance of models in arid and semiarid regions may
be related to both high salinity and its variation, as well
as stronger salt vertical transport due to the higher
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Fig. 6. Comparison of selected pairs of regression algorithms based on R 2 .
Regression algorithms: RF, MLR, ANN, SVM, and PLSR.
Fig. 7. Correlation matrix of evaluated features focusing on R 2 and RMSE.
RMSE_c, max_c, mean_c, and SD_c are, respectively, the converted RMSE of
models and the converted max value, mean value, and SD of salinity derived
from soil samples, respectively. Sand0_30 is the sand content of the 0–30-cm
topsoil. S/n is the value of the study area divided by sample numbers.
irrigation water volume/frequency and evaporation. The
average sand content fraction and FVC in the sampling
area are indirectly extracted from the literature with
a certain uncertainty. Higher sand content corresponds
to better model performance, which may be related to
lower spectral interference of the topsoil moisture due
to low soil water retention, and also, the salinity of
topsoil with high sand content is inherently relatively
low. Also, a higher FVC corresponds to a better model
performance but not significantly. In addition, unexpect-
edly, no significant differences in model performance
were observed under low, medium, and high FVC
conditions.
 4505815
Fig. 8. Effect of the number of subsamples per soil sample and the size
of the sampled plot (measured by its width) on the model performance using
different satellite images. “non”: information was not reported in this article.
On another level, we also evaluated the studies with R 2 ,
the normalized RMSE, max, mean, and SD (of the salinity
of the sample collection) at the ECe phase all recorded
(Fig. 7). In a multiobjective evaluation criterion, features not
only negatively correlated with RMSE but also positively
correlated with R 2 are the most effective for improving
the performance of the model. S/n satisfies this condition
but not significantly ( p-value > 0.1). Also, the use of
Landsat and FVC showed a significant negative correlation
with RMSE, which means to improve the prediction of
the model.
C. Meta-Analysis: The Potentially Applicable Plot Sampling
Design and Vegetation/SI When Using Different Satellite
Images
The selection of vegetation and SI in prediction model
construction and a field-scale soil sample design is often more
practical. On one hand, the number of subsamples of each
sample and the area covered by the sampling plot may be
related to the pixel size of the satellite image. Therefore,
the effect of the sampling design of studies using different
satellites was evaluated (see Fig. 8). When the sampling plot
is larger, the number of subsamples is also larger. In the studies
using only Landsat data, plots width smaller than 20 × 20 m2
correspond to fewer than four subsamples, and plots larger
than or equal to 30 × 30 m2 correspond to more than five
subsamples. In the studies using only Sentinel-2 data, plots
width smaller than 10 × 10 m2 correspond to fewer than five
subsamples, and plots larger than or equal to 20 m correspond
to more than ten subsamples. It shows that when the sample
plot area is small (smaller than the size of satellite image
pixel), researchers tended to use a small number of subsamples
with lower costs. When the sampling plot reaches or exceeds
one image pixel, researchers used more subsamples to try to
reduce the error. When the sample plots were further increased
(e.g., the 500 × 500 m2 plots when using Landsat data),
the number of samples did not increase accordingly. At the
30-m resolution of Landsat, the model performance of studies
using five subsamples on the 30 × 30 m plot only improved a
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Fig. 9. Effect of the VI/salinity index calculated by the bands of different
satellite images on the model performance when applied to the study area
with different FVC. FVC is classified into one, two, and three levels, which
represent low (mainly bare land), medium (a mixture of cropland and bare
land), and high (mainly cropland) vegetation coverage, respectively. Note that
records that did not use the five indices of NDVI, EVI, SAVI, CRSI, and SI
are not included. In the box plots, the center lines represent the means, and
the box limits represent the interquartile ranges.
little than using 3–4 subsamples on the 20 × 20 m2 plot.
In summary, in terms of model performance, the effect of
this improvement of multi subsamples may be insignificant.
On the other hand, due to the difference in the wavelength
range of different bands of satellite images, the evaluation of
various vegetation/salinity indices was subdivided by differ-
ent satellites (see Fig. 9). Among all VI_SIs, CRSI is the
most useful for improving the model performance. Under the
medium FVC conditions, the model performance is better than
the low and high FVC conditions. Under medium and high
FVC conditions, vegetation indices, such as NDVI, EVI, SAVI,
and CRSI that simultaneously monitor vegetation conditions,
performed better than SI, especially for studies using Landsat
data. Under low FVC conditions, the performance of SI was
better than other vegetation indices. Besides, CRSI and SI of
sentinel-2 performed correspondingly better than CRSI and SI
of Landsat under various FVC conditions. This shows that it is
necessary to select appropriate vegetation and SI for different
satellite data under different FVC conditions.
D. Joint Causal Effects of Multifeatures and the Tradeoff
Between Accuracy and Cost Based on the BN
To build the BN with all records of included studies (BNall ),
we constructed the causal relationship corresponding to the
prediction process and quantified its conditional probability
table using the data collected from the articles (see Fig. 10).
R 2 and RMSE are regarded as the main target variables, and a
variety of features are regarded as parent nodes that influence
the target variable through the conditional probability formula.
Based on experience and expert knowledge, we set the value
range of each status of each feature node. Subsequently, the
EM algorithm was used to compile the network. Based on
the sensitivity analysis of BNall (Fig. 12), we found that R 2
and RMSE are more sensitive to S/n, auxiliary data, and FVC,
which is consistent with the results of the single feature analy-
sis. With the joint influence of multiple features considered,
the model performance is less sensitive to the satellite remote
 SHI et al.: GLOBAL META-ANALYSIS OF SOIL SALINITY PREDICTION
Fig. 10. Joint probability effects of features on the model performance (R 2
and RMSE) of the BN based on all studies (BNall ). The values before and after
the “±” indicate the mean and SD of the distribution, respectively. S/n: study
area divided by the number of samples. FVC: fractional vegetation coverage.
L, M, S1, S2, DEM, and Hydro, respectively, represent Landsat, MODIS,
Sentinel-1, Sentinel-2, terrain data derived from DEM, and hydrometeorolog-
ical data.
Fig. 11. Joint probability effects of features on the model performance (R 2
and RMSE) of the BN based on studies using Landsat data (BNLandsat ) with
the tradeoff between accuracy and cost included. The values before and after
“±” indicate the mean and SD of the distribution, respectively. S/n: study
area divided by the number of samples. FVC: fractional vegetation coverage.
VI_SI: vegetation and salinity indices.
sensing data used than other features. Among different satellite
data, the model performance is more sensitive to Sentinel-
2 and the least sensitive to MODIS.
Also, we further developed a more practical BN suitable
for studies using Landsat data (BNLandsat ) (Fig. 11) with not
only more detailed variables included (e.g., plot size, the
number of subsamples, and the VI_SIs calculated with Landsat
image bands) but also the tradeoff between accuracy and cost
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Fig. 12. Sensitivity of the R 2 and RMSE to the findings at various feature
nodes of BNall based on (a) all studies and (b) BNLandsat based on studies using
Landsat data. MI: mutual information between nodes. MI-R 2 and MI-RMSE
indicate the sensitivity of R 2 and RMSE to various nodes, respectively.
(transportation cost, soil sample salinity analysis cost, and field
sampling labor cost). Similar to the BNall , the R 2 and RMSE
nodes of BNLandsat are more sensitive to FVC and S/n (see
Fig. 12). Besides, they are also sensitive to the algorithm,
the combinations of vegetation/salinity indices, the SD of the
salinity of samples, and the interval days between the date of
soil sampling and the satellite image acquisition. The R 2 node
of BNLandsat is not significantly sensitive to the plot size and
the number of subsamples.
In addition, the established BN can be used to guide future
research as a tool to project the performance and cost of soil
salinity prediction models. Using interactive operations and
entering the findings of the nodes, we can infer that the pos-
terior probability distribution of R 2 , RMSE, and cost-related
nodes with the status of some nodes determined (see Fig. 13).
Changes in the probability distribution of nodes can help us
recognize the potential impacts of various variables. We also
performed a scenario analysis with BNLandsat to demonstrate
the effectiveness of the BN in the analysis of the tradeoff
between accuracy and cost under different combinations of
variable status in Table II. It shows that the optimization of the
target variables (e.g., accuracy and cost nodes) under different
combinations of node status is not synchronized, possibly due
to the potential tradeoff relationship.
IV. D ISCUSSION
Many articles have evaluated various satellite remote sens-
ing data and machine learning algorithms to improve the
prediction accuracy of regional soil salinity. To date, the results
of these studies have not been combined and cannot provide
a final guideline for the selection of the soil salt prediction
process. Our work filled this gap by performing a meta-
analysis of peer-reviewed studies, by statistically quantifying
 4505815
Fig. 13. Inference based on tBNLandsat with the status of some nodes
determined.
the improvement in model performance achieved based on
different features and regression algorithms. The current state-
of-the-art technology was determined to provide pragmatic
guidance from several years of published research, aimed at
improving the accuracy of soil salinity prediction. We per-
formed a meta-analysis of published regional satellite remote
sensing predictions of soil salinity combined with in situ
soil sampling and machine learning to better understand this
approach and to guide future research. The effects of multiple
features on the performance of the model were analyzed
separately and jointly. Our analysis has shown that, despite the
growing interest among researchers, satellite-based predictions
of soil salinity remain uncertain, with potential for measure-
ment errors. The main practical application of our results
is to help researchers decide which improvement methods
are most promising with the developed BN as an interactive
and visual tool. With a clearer understanding of the expected
improvements achieved through including different features,
we can determine the priority of work and avoid practices
that may decrease model accuracy in the actual modeling
prediction process.
A. Opportunities and Challenges Exist for Improving Model
Performance Based on the Main Findings of This
Meta-Analysis
The applications of different satellite images have limited
effects on the improvement of model performance, compared
with the differences in the soil sampling schemes and the
characteristics of the study area. It indicates that the effects
of different temporal and spatial resolutions and spectral
resolutions of various satellite remote sensing data on accuracy
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may be overestimated. As the two most commonly used
multispectral satellite data for salinity prediction, Sentinel-
2 performed a little better than Landsat probably due to
higher spatial and temporal resolution [50]–[52]. The sat-
isfactory performance of MODIS illustrates the importance
of time granularity, which is also consistent with the sig-
nificant impact of the interval between the sampling date
and the remote sensing data acquisition date. When satellite
data are used for soil salinity prediction, the small tempo-
ral granularity may be able to compensate for the negative
effects of low spatial resolution. This also requires us to
further study the spatial and temporal errors. The role of
auxiliary data may also be limited especially in cultivated
areas where topographical, hydrological, and meteorological
variables may not be the dominant factors of soil salinity
variation.
The most significant differences between model perfor-
mances were found in different soil sampling schemes and
characteristics of the study area. First, the higher the mean
value and SD of the salinity of the sample collection,
the poorer the model performance. This shows the difficulty
to establish a quantitative regression relationship between high
salinity values and covariates. Sample collections with high
salinity variability may be accompanied by strong spatial
heterogeneity, which may lead to strong spectral confusion
and worse model performance [2]. Second, the temporal error
cannot be ignored when the sampling date and the remote
sensing data acquisition date are inconsistent. In previous
studies, this kind of date interval occurred possibly due to
the assumption of researchers that the surface salt is relatively
stable within the interval, but this study shows that this
may require more caution, due to surface salinity dynamics
caused by human activities, hydrology, climate, and vege-
tation conditions especially in irrigated areas. Third, under
different vegetation coverage conditions, the applicability of
some VI_SIs is indeed different. For example, under low FVC
conditions, the average performance of the SI, which pays
more attention to the difference in the spectral reflectance of
bare soil salinity, is better than other vegetation indices that
pay more attention to vegetation conditions. With the rapid
development of current machine learning methods, it may be
still feasible to use some ineffective variables as input, but if
the number of samples is limited, feature selection may still
be necessary [53]. Fourth, the design of subsamples matching
satellite image pixels may also have a certain meaning, but
too many subsamples may be unnecessary, and more attention
should be paid to the subpixel-scale spatial heterogeneity of
the subsamples. It is also related to the cost because the cost
of a large number of subsamples in each plot (especially at
a large plot, such as the 500-m-wide pixel of MODIS) is
significantly higher including labor costs and the cost of salt
chemical analysis.
In summary, most of the current satellite data used for
regional soil salinity prediction have certain practicability, and
we may need to pay more attention to the matching of the soil
sampling schemes and the characteristics of the study area
 SHI et al.: GLOBAL META-ANALYSIS OF SOIL SALINITY PREDICTION
with these satellite data with an in-depth understanding of the
specific response mechanism of remote sensing data to the
salinity variation, especially in terms of temporal and spatial
granularity.
B. Choice of the Features Involves Tradeoffs Between
Accuracy and Costs
In the practical implementation and prediction, we need to
consider the sampling scheme, the remote sensing data, and the
tradeoff of the expected accuracy and cost (e.g., satellite data
processing cost, plot subsamples sampling cost, transportation-
related cost, and soil sample analysis cost). The built BN
that is based on previous studies can provide quantitative
guidance with the practicality in modeling the joint effects of
multifeatures on the model performance. Under the conditions
of the combined multivariate changes, it can analyze the main
influencing factors and effectively estimate the probability
distribution of model performance with some status of feature
nodes determined. Also, the BN can guide soil sampling
schemes through diagnostic analysis. For example, if we only
need a moderate accuracy, the BN can give recommendations
for soil sampling density with different satellite data. The
tradeoff between accuracy and cost may also vary with the
research aims. Most articles included in this meta-analysis
mainly focused more on achieving high prediction accuracy
with high spatial resolution datasets. However, in practical
agricultural management, our needs for the high spatial reso-
lution may not be very essential because coarse-scale salinity
prediction is enough to support agricultural management (e.g.,
determining the sowing area before the growing season).
Although MODIS has disadvantages in spatial resolution, it
has significant advantages over Sentinel-2 and Landsat in
temporal resolution, which may be more effective in predicting
the salinity dynamics with its time-series data [33] in the
growing season.
C. Uncertainties and Limitations of This Meta-Analysis
The potential uncertainties and limitations of the results of
this meta-analysis are as follows.
1) Publication Bias and Weight: This study did not pay
much attention to publication bias because the number of
articles that can be included in the meta-analysis is rela-
tively limited. Previous meta-analysis studies were often
performed based on the quality of the published journal
and the public availability of research data [54], [55].
Unfortunately, most of the articles included in this study
did not share soil sample data and established models
publicly. The preferences in specific soil sampling and
the setting of machine learning model parameters are
not transparent, which makes it difficult to evaluate the
reliability of the results of a single study, although most
of the remote sensing data used were obtained from open
source. Besides, the previous meta-analysis studies often
weigh the effects of included studies based on sample
size and variance of experimental results [56]–[58].
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4505815
However, in this study, the number of samples was
regarded as one of the evaluated features due to the lack
of convincing methods to determine the weights between
the models of the included articles.
2) Limitations of the Criteria for Including Articles: For
the quantitative evaluation of model accuracy, we only
selected studies that established multivariate regression
models and reported R 2 . Studies focusing on the classi-
fication of soil salinity levels were not included, and
studies that established a univariate regression model
were not included. It may lead to the incompleteness and
limitation of the evaluation of some features. The remote
sensing datasets used in the included articles are still
mainly multispectral data and, thus, the evaluation of
the studies using active/passive microwave remote sens-
ing [59], [60], and hyperspectral data are insufficient.
In addition, when considering the relationship between
the measured soil salinity and remote sensing data, this
study did not distinguish those studies that have used
remote sensing data for multiyear [29], [30] focusing
on the root zone but still calculated the time interval
based on the remote sensing data acquisition date in the
same year as the soil sampling. However, since there are
only a few studies using data for multiyear, its impact
on the evaluation results may be limited. Also, only
articles published in English journals were included.
However, many studies may have been published in
other languages (e.g., Chinese, Spanish, and Arabic)
because most areas affected by soil salinization are not
English-speaking countries.
3) Uncertainty of the Extracted Feature Information: First,
because most studies use far more soil sample inputs
in the regression model than the covariates, we did not
adapt R 2 in this study to the adjusted- R 2 . Although this
may cause partial overestimation of the positive effects
of several features, second, the soil texture extracted
from HydroSHEDS may also introduce errors when
converted from the watershed to the field scale at the in
situ soil sample sites. Therefore, based on the extracted
soil texture, the conversion of the mean, maximum,
SD, and model RMSE of the salinity measured with
different methods may also introduce some errors. Thus,
due to the uncertainty in the normalization of salinity
values, the RMSE-based evaluation in this article may be
biased compared to R 2 . Third, the classification of FVC,
in which the land use and land cover of the study area
and the date of the soil sampling are comprehensively
considered, may introduce errors due to subjectivity.
Fourth, the interference effect of soil moisture [61] on
the spectrum of salinized lands has not been specifically
studied in this study because the in situ measured soil
moisture data are almost not used in the selected pub-
lished articles used for the meta-analysis. The temporal
variability of soil moisture may be distinguished by
the difference in satellite time resolution. For example,
the five-day resolution of Sentinel-2 can contain less
likely soil moisture fluctuations caused by precipitation
 4505815
or irrigation than the 16-day resolution of Landsat. The
influence of different irrigation methods can also be
partly attributed to the temporal soil moisture variation.
Compared with flood irrigated areas, in drip-irrigated
areas, soil moisture fluctuation may be smaller due to
higher irrigation frequency and lower irrigation volume
per time. Therefore, the possibility of model failure due
to large soil moisture fluctuations can be lower than that
in flood irrigated areas. Fifth, considering that a large
number of studies are located in arid and extremely arid
regions, low precipitation has little effect on the leaching
of surface salt, so we did not distinguish between wet
and dry seasons in this study. Sixth, since most of the
soil salinity samples of the articles included are located
in low-lying flat lands that are often more salt-affected,
we did not consider the slope differences among these
study areas. However, a few included studies may still
include some sampling sites located in undulating ter-
rains, which may lead to the overestimation of the effec-
tiveness of topographic variables extracted from DEM
data in the interpretation of soil salinity variation. Corre-
spondingly, in a small area of cropland, the contribution
of topographical variables to the improvement of model
accuracy may be limited. For small-scale undulating
terrain, the current commonly used DEM data with a
resolution of 90 m may not be sufficient to capture the
spatial heterogeneity of the subpixel salinity due to the
coarse spatial resolution. Finally, various parameter and
structure settings and optimization forms of the models
are not treated differently. Instead, they were classified
into algorithm families. It may also bring uncertainty to
the subsequent evaluation.
4) Independence Between Features: In terms of the char-
acteristics of the study area, although multiple features
were extracted, the independence between these fea-
tures was not taken into consideration. For example,
mean salinity values of the sample collection, FVC,
soil texture, and whether the study area belong to the
arid/semiarid region that may not be independent, which
may interfere with the evaluation of the effect of a single
feature.
5) Potential Expert Knowledge Integrated Into the BN:
In this study, the BN was completely parameterized
based on the data collected from published articles.
In future applications, expert knowledge in the field of
remote sensing estimation of soil salinity can be first
incorporated by giving the prior distribution (the rela-
tionship between multifeatures and the potential effects
on accuracy) and then use the observation records of
the included articles to update the BN to achieve the
best integration and utilization of qualitative and quan-
titative information. With the inclusion of new records,
the assessment objectives may change, and the structure
of the BN may also need to be adapted.
V. C ONCLUSION
We performed a meta-analysis of regional satellite-based
soil salinity predictions combined with in situ soil sampling
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and machine learning. We evaluated the various features
involved in the prediction process and established a BN
based on multiple features to evaluate the joint causal effect
and guide future research with the tradeoff between accu-
racy and cost. The main conclusions of this study are as
follows.
1) Most significant differences between the model perfor-
mance were found in different soil sampling schemes
and the characteristics of the study area, including the
mean and variability (averaged R 2 of 0.75 in sample
sets with lower salinity variation and 0.62 in others)
of the salinity of the soil samples, the climate type
(averaged R 2 of 0.64 in arid/semiarid areas and 0.74 in
others), the soil texture of the study area (averaged R 2
of 0.66 in sandy areas with sand content higher than 40%
and 0.57 in others), and the interval between sampling
date and satellite data acquisition date (averaged R 2
of 0.53 under the condition of over 15 days and 0.65 in
others).
2) Using different satellite data has limited effects on
the improvement of model performance among which
Sentinel-2 (averaged R 2 = 0.72) performed better than
Landsat (averaged R 2 = 0.66). The sampling of subsam-
ples for each sample should focus on their subpixel-scale
spatial heterogeneity across various satellite data rather
than the number of subsamples. It is also necessary
to select appropriate VI_SIs for different satellite data
under different FVC conditions.
3) RF (averaged R 2 = 0.70) and SVM (averaged R 2 =
0.71) performed best among all evaluated algorithms.
4) The established BN has practicality in guiding future
research with the tradeoff between accuracy and cost.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The built BN is publicly available at
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5146240.
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Haiyang Shi is currently pursuing the joint Ph.D.
degree with Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium,
and Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography,
Chinese Academy of Sciences (XIEG), Urumqi,
China. His research interests include hydrology and
machine learning applications in remote sensing and
geography.
Olaf Hellwich (Senior Member, IEEE) was born
in 1962. He received the B.S. degree in surveying
engineering from the University of New Brunswick,
Fredericton, NB, Canada, in 1986, and the Ph.D.
degree in linienextraktion aus SAR-Daten mit einem
Markoff-Zufallsfeld-Modell from the Technische
Universität München, Munich, Germany, in 1997.
He headed the Remote Sensing Group, Department
of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, Technische
Universität München. Since 2001, he has been a
Professor with the Technische Universität Berlin
(TUB), Berlin, Germany, initially for photogrammetry and cartography and
since 2004 for computer vision and remote sensing. From 2006 to 2009,
he was the Dean of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer
Science, TUB. His research interests include 3-D object reconstruction, object
recognition, and synthetic aperture radar remote sensing. Most recently,
he focuses on discovery and use of object shape priors in 3-D reconstruction.
Dr. Hellwich was a recipient of the Hansa Luftbild Prize of the German
Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing in 2000.
Authorized licensed use limited to: THE LIBRARY OF CHINESE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. Downloaded on February 07,2022 at 10:02:33 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON GEOSCIENCE AND REMOTE SENSING, VOL. 60, 2022
Geping Luo was born in 1968. He graduated from
the State Key Laboratory of Resources and Environ-
mental Information System, Institute of Geograph-
ical Sciences and Resources, Chinese Academy of
Sciences, in June 2002, and received the Ph.D.
degree in cartography and geographic information
system. Since 2005, he has been a Professor and a
Doctoral Supervisor with Xinjiang Institute of Ecol-
ogy and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences,
and a Professor with the University of Chinese
Academy of Sciences. At present, he mainly uses
ecological models, regional climate/land surface process models, remote
sensing, and empirical statistical models, combined with big data analysis and
machine learning methods, to engage in the research on ecological and climate
effects of land use and cover change, remote sensing, and GIS applications.
Chunbo Chen was born in Neijiang, Sichuan,
China, in 1985. He received the Ph.D. degree in car-
tography and geographic information system from
the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi, China,
in 2018.
In 2018, he joined the Team of Land Change and
Ecological Modeling, Xinjiang Institute of Ecology
and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences. His
research interests include big data mining, ecological
modeling, and remote sensing observation.
Huili He was born in Hami, Xinjiang, China,
in March 1993. She is currently pursuing the
Ph.D. degree with Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and
Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi,
China. In her doctoral program, her research mainly
concentrated on exploring the climatic effect of land
use/land cover change in the Aral Sea region based
on the regional climate model.
Friday Uchenna Ochege received the B.Sc. and
M.Sc. degrees in geography and cartography from
the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nigeria, in 2010
and 2014, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in car-
tography and geographic information system from
the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences,
Beijing, China, in 2021. He is currently a Post-
Doctoral Research Fellow with the Xinjiang Insti-
tute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy
of Sciences, China. His research interests include
remote sensing of vegetation, evapotranspiration,
land use/cover and climate changes, and the application of machine learning
methods in remote sensing and geographical research.
Tim Van de Voorde received the M.Sc. degree
in geography/geographic information systems,
the M.A. degree in business economics, and the
Ph.D. degree in geography from Vrije Universiteit
Brussel (VUB), Brussels, Belgium, in 1997, 2006,
and 2011, respectively.
He has been working as a Research Associate
at the Cartography and GIS Research Group,
VUB, since 1998. In 2017, he became a part-time
Professor at the Geography Department, Ghent
University, Ghent, Belgium. His research interests
include urban remote sensing, urban greenspaces, ecosystem services, GIS
and remote sensing applications in archeology, and deep learning applications
in remote sensing and geography.
 SHI et al.: GLOBAL META-ANALYSIS OF SOIL SALINITY PREDICTION
Alishir Kurban is currently a Professor at Xin-
jiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese
Academy of Sciences, Urumqi, China. He tested
new 3-D modeling technology for archeological site
erosion research and 3-D change detection of arid
land surface including vegetation above biomass
changes. He made over 30 variety scales thematic
maps, including land cover/land use maps, vegeta-
tion maps, and natural resources maps for Xinjiang
Region. He has published four monographs and
over 50 research articles in scientific journals in
Uyghur, Chinese, and English. He has supervised and co-supervised over
30 M.Sc. and Ph.D. dissertations. He successfully organized or co-organized
several international scientific conferences and summer schools in the field
of cartography and GIS, and Intercarto-InterGIS 14, GISCA, and SilkGIS
series conference in Urumqi, Bishkek, Tashkent, and Isfahan. His research
interests include the application of remote sensing and geographic information
technology in the field of arid environment and ecosystem research, specially
focused on natural resource mapping, land cover and land use mapping,
vegetation mapping and urban mapping via applying remote sensing, and GIS.
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4505815
Philippe De Maeyer is currently a Senior Full Pro-
fessor in cartography and GIS and the Chair of the
Department of Geography, Ghent University. He is
also a Full Member of the Royal Academy of Over-
seas Science, Belgium. He is involved in research on
the history of cartography and map making and the
use of GIS in historical (map) studies (esp. 18th until
20th Century); the use of GIS and remote sensing
for land cover/land use issues/changes (including
climate change, esp. in Central Asia); the use of
GIS and remote sensing in archeology (Silk road
in Xinjiang, China; Campeche, Mexico; and so on); risk modeling (esp. the
economic direct impact and the social, ecological, and cultural impact) of
floods and other natural hazards (Belgium, SIDS Small Island Developing
States, and so on); the use of GIS for accessibility studies, e.g., accessibility
to health care; and indoor routing (algorithms and landmarks) and so on.